Casaulties News

At least nine people died when a boat carrying dozens of migrants sank off the coast of the island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily, Italy's coastguard said on Monday.The coastguard said rescue vessels had picked up 22 people, and search operations for other survivors were underway after an alert was received late on Sunday night that a boat carrying some 50 people was in difficulty.The U.N. migration agency said the boat had set sail from Tunisia and had been carrying Tunisian and west African migrants.Vessels from the coastguard and customs police had reached the vessel, which overturned in rough seas about six nautical miles from the coast of Lampedusa, the coastguard said in a statement.

Divers recovered the bodies of 20 of 34 people believed to have been killed after a fast-moving fire broke out aboard a dive boat off California's Santa Cruz Island, trapping the victims below deck, authorities said on Tuesday.Search and rescue efforts were called off and recovery moves were underway, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff and U.S. Coast Guard officials told a press conference.Authorities will use so-called rapid DNA technology to identify the bodies, 11 females and 9 males, authorities said.Other bodies were seen in the underwater wreckage. When water and weather conditions stabilize, crews will attempt to recover the remaining 14, authorities said.The 75-foot (23 m) Conception caught fire about 3:15 a.m. Monday and sank.

The bodies of three boaters from Europe who died in an Alaska lake were surrounded by frozen debris, a sign that the victims were killed by ice that fell from the melting glacier that feeds the lake, officials in the city of Valdez said on Thursday.The victims were identified by the city as two Germans and an Austrian and were found dead on Tuesday morning in Valdez Glacier Lake, about 120 miles (193 km) east of Anchorage.The victims were found in an area that "was littered with floating icebergs, glacial slush and challenging terrain for recovery," said a statement released by Valdez city officials.Those conditions, plus the location of the remains near the toe of Valdez Glacier…

Indonesian rescuers were battling high tides and strong winds on Friday in a search for 31 people missing after a fishing boat sank in waters off Borneo island, killing at least four, an official of the search and rescue agency said.There were 37 people on board the vessel, four of whom had been found dead, while two had survived, agency spokesman Iman Saputra said by telephone."Rescue efforts will go on for the next four days. The obstacles are high tides and strong winds," said Saputra, who is based in Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan province, near the site of the sinking.The vessel had left the town of Pekalongan on Java island three days ago before running into trouble, Saputra said, adding that the agency had deployed 35 people to hunt for those missing.

Coast Guard pollution responders are responding to a report of a tug that sank at the Port Orchard Railway Marina in Port Townsend, Washington, Monday.Members from Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound's Incident Management Division are on scene overseeing the removal and containment of fuel discharged from the 65-foot tug Meagan M. The vessel is currently registered as a towing vessel; however the master claims it has been used in a strictly recreational capacity for the past two years.

The Coast Guard has transitioned from pollution response to the investigation phase of a major marine casualty that occurred July 5, 2019, involving three vessels that sank in the Illinois River near Hardin, Illinois.Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi River received a report of three tugboats and a deck barge that were tied together and began taking on water at mile marker 20.7 on the Illinois River. Sector UMR responded to the scene to find all three vessels fully submerged.The vessels were identified as Chatty Sue Smith…

New Orleans braced for severe flooding with residents told to hunker down as a growing tropical storm in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico headed for landfall late on Friday or early on Saturday as the first Atlantic hurricane of 2019.U.S. President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency for the state of Louisiana late on Thursday, hours after the region's oil production was cut by half as energy companies evacuated offshore drilling facilities and a coastal refinery.Tropical Storm…

The Coast Guard is responding to three vessels that sunk on the Illinois River near Hardin, Illinois, Sunday.Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi River received a report Friday of three tugboats and a deck barge that were tied together and began taking on water at mile marker 21 on the Illinois River.The sinking tugboats are holding approximately 4,850 gallons of diesel and oil.Sector Upper Mississippi River dispatched personnel to work with the tugboat company…